I avoid engaging in some subjects because they are tedious to discuss. Subjects like Religion, Morality, Sexuality, Liberalism-versus-Conservatism, Science-versus-Unreason, Politics (Well, I do sometimes on a mild level) and, wait for it.... Feminism!

I've noticed, lately, how the Feminism campaign - whether by design or circumstantial - is gaining attention in pop-conversations, and the jury is out to determine if the wide media attention commensurate with a wide society's acceptance of Feminism. (I suppose it is unreasonable to equate the degree of media attention to the degree of message acceptance. I'm a media person; I should know better, I think). There's the Chimamanda Adichie talk, the Beyoncé connection, the famous actress delivering a UN speech about it, the Lean-In movement, and other manifestations enabled and proliferated by social media.

In all of these - and with all the googling and wikipeding - I still wonder what the universally agreed meaning of feminism is. My feminist and pseudo-identity-crisis-feminist friends haven't helped (We blow too much grammar on BBM). I know the feminism of Gloria Steinem and Susan Sontag. But I'm soon confused when I see a brand of feisty feminism that marches forward with angry drivels and with anything but intellectual sophistication. (A friend took offense when I asked how do we know who's a genuine feminist or who's hiding under the concept to exhibit or hide personal psychiatric damages). Perhaps, feistiness is necessary. The Civil Rights Movement has its violent side too. Anyway, I suppose, to some extent, the dictionary definitions of certain concepts clash with real life demonstrations of the concepts. I am all for equal opportunities, gender-equality, no-glass-ceiling society, Buhari-for-all-voters, and other sexy democratic ideals but it's confusing when movement and meaning contrast.

Well, may start to get tedious. Someone (Ph.D. & feminist) shared a piece with me. It puts another spin to the conversation about marriage & feminism. It's written by a man who operates an open relationship with his wife. And o'boy, I didn't know the meaning of open relationship extends to marriage, until I read this article. It’s the type of article that can jar liberal sensibilities. It will shock religious conservatives too.

"As I write this, my children are asleep in their room, and my wife is out on a date with a man named Paulo. It’s her second date this week.... If it goes like the others, she’ll come home in the middle of the night, crawl into bed beside me, and tell me all about how she and Paulo had sex. I won’t explode with anger or seethe with resentment. I’ll tell her it’s a hot story and I’m glad she had fun. It’s hot because she’s excited, and I’m glad because I’m a feminist.... Before my wife started sleeping with other men, I certainly considered myself a feminist... "

And I suppose this one should give SOME feisty feminists an orgasm:

"She didn’t present it as an issue of feminism to me, but after much soul-searching about why the idea of my wife having sex with other men bothered me I came to a few conclusions: Monogamy meant I controlled her sexual expression, and, not to get all women’s-studies major about it, patriarchal oppression essentially boils down to a man’s fear that a woman with sexual agency is a woman he can’t control. We aren’t afraid of their intellect or their spirit or their ability to bear children. We are afraid that when it comes time for sex, they won’t choose us. This petty fear has led us as a culture to place judgments on the entire spectrum of female sexual expression: If a woman likes sex, she’s a whore and a slut; if she only likes sex with her husband or boyfriend, she’s boring and lame; if she doesn’t like sex at all, she’s frigid and unfeeling. Every option is a trap."